Galloway: Gap Between Rich and Poor Widening

ByHoma Zaryouni ·

21 January 2014

L2 Founder and CEO Scott Galloway spoke on a Bloomberg panel today about the widening gap between the rich and poor. Galloway said nowadays it’s easier to become a billionaire than to get out of poverty. Of the 130 MBA students he teaches at New York University, at least one person is bound to become a billionaire but a third will move back with their parents at some period in their lives. Galloway explained the discrepancy as a velocity effect: students either get on the right air stream and accelerate, or struggle. What really hurts students of all fields is student debt, and college remains the upward-mobility lubricant in our society. 90% of the wealthiest quintile of America will go to college, compared to only 10% of the poor.

Galloway believes the government should have an ethos of generosity. To illustrate how society has declared war on the poor, he urged a look at the economic narrative. More profit for the rich is associated with growth, while talk giving more money to the poor leads to discussions about the moral hazard of them not working, he said. See full interview here.